DO IT NOW!
(All my sermons use scripture found on www.sermoncentral.com and ALL scripture is NIV unless otherwise noted)
I have been meaning to talk to you about this subject, but I just keep putting it off. It is a subject that needs to be looked at from a scriptural perspective, but for some reason I have delayed speaking to you about it.
The subject is procrastination. Why wait? Oh, I know there are many reasons we can come up with, none of them relevant. There is always something we can say, good things come to those who wait? You can serve no wine before its’ time?
“It can wait until tomorrow!” Despite that old adage, “Never put off to tomorrow the things that you can do today!” , the fact is that there are many if not most things when examined with the critical eye that could always wait for another day, another better time, another opportunity to offer completion or execute disposal. Take doing your taxes, for example. Many has been the time that I, prompted by a striving to be efficient and on top of my game, have tried to complete my taxes before the middle of January had arrived. And, how often have I found that, once completed early, I only had to go back and change something any way since W-2’s had not yet arrived or a certain interest statement had not yet arrived from the bank. Doing taxes in an efficient and timely manner usually requires waiting for just the right tomorrow and then setting out to get the work done then. If you think about it, there are probably a lot of things in this life like that. Jumping the gun and trying to complete projects and tasks before they are ready can cause a whole lot of trouble. In fact, trying to save time in this manner can often result in the opposite, losing the time you had striven to save. When you come right down to it, perhaps there is nothing wrong with procrastination as long as you end up “winning” at the end. I’ve often heard it put this way: “A successful procrastinator puts off his work so long that by the time it’s finished, there’s no time not to like what he had done.”
What about the old adage “Everything comes to him who waits?” Doesn’t that mean that the longer I wait to plan something, initiate something or complete something, the better the odds that the waiting will result in a better product, a higher achievement and a more rewarding outcome when I finally do decide to address the issues? It would, of course, be great if this were the way all things were accomplished in this life. In a way it would be like just sitting back and letting things sort themselves out and then getting down to business. In a perfect world things would probably work that way. I have often felt that this was the method for accomplishment that Adam and Eve must have used. Things just happened when they were supposed to happen. Time, in essence, had as little meaning for them as it does for God.
But, in this imperfect world we live in, it is highly more likely that the longer we wait to do things, the harder and more unpleasant they will seem to be to start. Perhaps it’s the way we look at time that causes all the problem. We divide things into yesterday, today and tomorrow. Since we live in today and want to enjoy the moment and yesterday is beyond our reach, poor tomorrow so often gets the nod for the “to-do’s” in our lives. Yet, when you think of it, tomorrow and today are so inextricably linked that waiting for tomorrow is like waiting for the next minute to pass on your watch. There is always another minute; there will always be another tomorrow. Clarence Macartney writes, “At the threshold of a new year, we stand today at one of those divisions of time which man has established for his own convenience. The division is altogether imaginary and arbitrary. This day is no more the beginning of a new year than yesterday or the day before.
So this morning let us look at the subject of procrastination with a word from God found in the very beginning of the Bible:
Gen 6:3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
PRAYER
Here are some of the problems with procrastination:
I. PROCRASTINATION REVEALS DEEPER PROBLEMS
Josh 18:3 So Joshua said to the Israelites: "How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?
Many times there is a deeper reason that we are not doing something that we know needs to be done. Is it FEAR? Is it that we feel overwhelmed? Is it that we are not ready to tackle a large, boring and difficult task? Or is it that we just feel as if someone else should do it?
It may be that we are enjoying the thing we are doing right now that keeps us from doing something else we know needs to be done. Many televison shows portray men as those that will put off working for golf, anything they can do to make it possible to have pleasure in the here and now, and put off the project at hand for another day. BUT, folks I hate to be the one to tell you this, OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED.
God has given us so much, life, love, grace, each other and TIME. We are to be good stewards of the time we have been given. UNFORTUNATELY, we do not know when that time will run out, and that means we must use each day, each hour, each minute VERY carefully.
Have you ever really asked yourself WHY you are not taking care of the things you know need to be done in your life? Is it something deeper that keeps you from doing what needs to be done, or is it the anxiety of giving something more pleasurable up in order to get the right thing done. Perhaps it is the thought of pain that keeps us from doing the right thing:
The world's best cyclist, Lance Armstrong, says this about pain:
I become a happier man each time I suffer.
Suffering is as essential to a good life, and as inextricable, as bliss. The old saying that you should live each day as if it’s your last is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t work. Take it from me. I tried it once, and here’s what I learned: If I pursued only happiness, and lived just for the moment, I’d be a no-account with a perpetual three-day growth on my chin. Cancer taught me that.
Before cancer, whatever I imagined happiness to be, pretty soon I wore it out, took it for granted, or threw it away. A portfolio, a Porsche, a coffee machine--these things were important to me. So was my hair. Then I lost them, including the hair. When I was 25, I was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer, which had metastasized into my lungs and brain. I sold the car, gave up my career as a world-class cyclist, lost a good deal of money, and barely hung on to my life.
When I went into remission, I thought happiness would mean being self-indulgent. Not knowing how much time I had left, I did not intend to ever suffer again. I had suffered months of fear, chemotherapy so strong it left burn marks under my skin, and surgery to remove two tumors. Happiness to me then was waking up.
I ate Mexican food, played golf, and lay on the couch. The pursuit of happiness meant going to my favorite restaurant and pursuing a plate of enchiladas with tomatillo sauce.
But one day my wife, Kristin, put down her fork and said, "You need to decide something: Are you going to be a golf-playing, beer-drinking, Mexican-food-eating slob for the rest of your life? If you are, I’ll still love you. But I need to know, because if so, I’ll go get a job. I’m not going to sit at home while you play golf."
I stared at her. "I’m so bored," she said.
Suddenly, I understood that I was bored, too. The idleness was forced; I was purposeless, with nothing to pursue. That conversation changed everything. I realized that responsibility, the routines and habits of shaving in the morning with a purpose, a job to do, a wife to love, and a child to raise--these were the things that tied my days together and gave them a pattern deserving of the term living.
Within days I was back on my bicycle. For the first time in my life, I rode with real strength and stamina and purpose. Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things--whether health or a car or an old sense of self--has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers.
People ask me why I ride my bike for six hours a day; what is the pleasure? The answer is that I don’t do it for the pleasure. I do it for the pain. In my most painful moments on the bike, I am at my most self-aware and self-defining. There is a point in every race when a rider encounters the real opponent and realizes that it’s...himself. You might say pain is my chosen way of exploring the human heart.
That pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it subsides. And when it does, something else takes its place, and that thing might be called a greater space for happiness. We have unrealized capacities that only emerge in crisis--capacities for enduring, for living, for hoping, for caring, for enjoying. Each time we overcome pain, I believe that we grow.
Cancer was the making of me: Through it I became a more compassionate, complete, and intelligent man, and therefore a more alive one. So that’s why I ride, and why I ride hard. Because it makes me hurt, and so it makes me happy.
II. PROCRASTINATION IS THE CAUSE OF MANY FAILURES
Prov 10:4-5 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. 5 He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.
How many of us have missed out on an opportunity because we put it off? A failure that could have been avoided if we had only acted on the opportunity at hand. So many times God presents us an opportunity and we say, “When I get to it” No where else is it more important then people act and not delay then when God is speaking to their heart, we know not what tomorrow will bring, we must act when God speaks.
"During the early days of the ministry of Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist launched a series of meetings in Chicago with promise of the largest crowds that he had ever addressed up to that time. He was speaking of the life of Christ, and on the first Sunday night, October 8, 1871, he took as his topic the trial before Pilate. As he came to the end of his message, he turned to Mat_27:22,
‘What shall I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ?’
He concluded, ‘I wish you would take this text home with you and turn it over in your minds during the week, and next Sabbath we will come to Calvary and the cross, and we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth.’
It may have been an artistic device. But speaking of it in later years, Moody called that conclusion to his morning’s address the greatest mistake of his life. Even while Mr. Sankey was singing the final hymn:
‘Today the Savior calls; For refuge fly; The storm of justice falls, And death is nigh-’
the fire engines began to sound on the street on their way to their first contact with the great Chicago fire in which Moody’s hall was laid in ashes, and in which it is estimated that over a thousand persons lost their lives. Moody never saw that congregation again, and some of those to whom he spoke on that night doubtlessly died.”
Do not put off your decision to follow what God is calling you to do, you have no ideas of the pressures, obstacles and problems the devil will throw at you tomorrow that may keep you from finding joy in God’s plan for your life.
Finally let us see:
III. PROCRASTINATION LEADS TO AN UNPRODUCTIVE LIFESTYLE
Prov 26:13-16 The sluggard says, "There is a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!" 14 As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed. 15 The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth. 16 The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answer discreetly.
Prov 26:13-16 The lazy man won't go out and work. "There might be a lion outside!" he says. 14 He sticks to his bed like a door to its hinges! 15 He is too tired even to lift his food from his dish to his mouth! 16 Yet in his own opinion he is smarter than seven wise men. TLB
we have heard them all now! I mean I have heard many excuses for not working, but the Bible uses the ole, there might be a lion outside I should stay inside and watch televison excuse. BUT, what we are being taught is that procrastination leads us to being so lazy that we might not be able to feel ourselves. Think of this excuse in a spiritual sense, are we so lazy that we cannot lift the Word of God that would feel our spirit? Procrastination is simply laziness and it leads to a life that will never experience fulfillment.
The two things I see us making excuses about the most is preparing our lives for the return of our Savior and allowing God to use us to prepare others.
A. I have heard so many people give me reasons for putting off accepting Jesus as Lord and not joining the church. So many times people act as if they have all the time in the world before they need to accept that the only way they will ever see heaven is by accepting Jesus.
John A Boor- I had an opportunity to work in a bakery while going to high school. I remember one particular day when the telephone rang and one of the ladies went to answer it. She put down the phone like it was hot and yelled, “He’s coming!” I wondered what in the world was going on. The ladies ran for their hair nets and men ran for clean aprons and clean caps. The boss told me to sweep the floor, and cover all the containers. There was a wild and excited look in his eyes. Everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I thought to myself, “Who is coming?” Suddenly through the front door entered a man in a suit with a case under his arm. As I observed him he began to walk around and check the bakery for any health hazards. I then realized that he was the state inspector for the Board of Health. After he left everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went back to work. One of the ladies told me that all the places of business always watched out for each other. The first one to see the inspector coming would then call the other business. They had a system of warning. When Jesus comes again there won’t be time to prepare a speech on all the good things we have been involved in. There won’t be time to tell him how our neighbors and friends hindered us in His service. There will be judgment> So then each one of us shall give an account of himself before God. God will not accept our excuses nor will He give us time to repent. Today is the time to prepare ourselves for His coming. Remember, “He is coming!”
B. So many people who have come to the Lord are waiting for themselves to become something they may never be, before they are going to be used by God. Folks just look to the Bible and see the people that God used:
The next time you feel like GOD can’t use you, just remember...
Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
John the Baptist ate bugs
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer...
AND
Lazarus was dead!
What do you have that’s worse than that?
So no more excuses!
God can use you to your full potential.
Besides you aren’t the message, you are just the messenger
Do wait until tomorrow, you have no idea what tomorrow will bring if in fact there is a tomorrow. Why don’t you act today? God is calling for each of us to do today what needs to be done. If God is calling you MUST answer him.
INVITATION
